SHILLONG, March 7: Nongpoh MLA Mayralborn Syiem has urged the state government to raise the fixed honorarium and incentives of the ASHAs and their facilitators.
Moving a call attention motion in the Assembly on Monday, he said an ASHA is getting a fixed honorarium of Rs 2,000 per month, which comes to a very low Rs 66 per day.
“If the government could raise the fixed honorarium to Rs 150 or Rs 200 per day, it would greatly help the ASHAs who are rendering valuable service to ensure that the healthcare system reaches the people, especially pregnant mothers and children,” Syiem said.
He said the fixed honorarium and home visit allowance of the ASHA facilitators supervising the ASHA workers should be raised from the current Rs 2,400 per month and Rs 300 per visit.
“Rs 300 is very low especially in the rural areas if they have to book tourist taxis for home visits,” the Nongpoh MLA said.
He also said various incentives provided by both the state government and the Centre should be paid on time.
“It is important to look into the issues and grievances of the ASHAs and ASHA facilitators. It is really unfortunate to see them come out on the streets to demand their dues, honorarium and better incentives,” Syiem said.
In his reply, Health Minister James PK Sangma said that with the introduction of the incentives from the state government, an ASHA is guaranteed a minimum of Rs 4,000 per month excluding the performance-based incentives under the National Health Mission (NHM).
“An ASHA is expected to earn an incentive of Rs 5,000-10,000 per month depending on performance,” he said.
He further said fixed and COVID-19 incentives of Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000 respectively per ASHA per month from the state government has been released to the districts in two instalments.
“The first instalment was released for payment till September 2021 and the second was released for payment till March 2022,” he said.
Sangma admitted that there has been a delay in the incentives reaching the ASHAs in time. “Hence, we promised to develop an efficient online claims and payment mechanism last year to end this delay,” he said.
He said that with the support of the NHM, a mobile payment application for the ASHAs and ASHA facilitators has been developed for ensuring timely disbursement of the incentives.
“The application will also be an important support tool for programme officers at all levels as it will enable regular monitoring and tracking of ASHA payment and ensure minimum time lag in payments. This application has been rolled out in Ri-Bhoi district’s Umling Block on a pilot basis and it is expected to be implemented in the entire state by April,” Sangma said.
He also said the government has released Rs 151 crore in the last four years for ASHAs as incentives and for clearing the backlog of the erstwhile Meghalaya ASHA Benefit Scheme and Meghalaya Maternity Benefit Scheme.
“Of the Rs 151-crore released, Rs 79.49 crore, i.e., over 50% amount has come from the state resources. This is thrice the amount of Rs 48.87 crore released during 2013-18,” he said.
The health minister has urged the members not to believe that the ASHAs are getting only Rs 66 per day.
“For 2021-22, an amount of Rs 59 crore has already been released to about 7,000 ASHAs, which would amount to about Rs 7,000 per ASHA per month on an average. This is about Rs 233 per day,” he said.
He further said the number of ASHA workers has been increased from about 6,690 in 2018 to 7,051 in 2022 for reaching out to each and every locality in the state.
